Robyn Hitchcock Gigography

Grant Lee Hitchcock Grant Lee Phillips and Robyn Hitchcock
Concert appearance: Sun., 15 Oct. 2000
IOTA Club
Arlington, Virginia US

Set list:

Okay -- was I the only Feg at last night's gig? Very enjoyable
evening -- loosest I've seen Robyn since the Respect tour w/Andy
and Morris. He and Grant are a real hoot together, and it's nice
to see two guys who get such a charge out of what they're doing
and each other. Coupla notes, I may write more tonight.

1) About 175 people there -- which is a lot for the Iota. Place
filled up early. Very few chairs -- alas, I am getting too old
to stand in one spot on concrete for two and a half hours.

2) Blue and green horizontal striped shirt (a la Element of Light),
blue pants throughout. Sunglasses only came down off the top
of his head for one number. Strange -- I always thought Robyn
had longer legs. Maybe it was the horizontal stripes.

3) Taping -- did someone (Bayard?) say something about patching
off Grant's deck? I cruised by the sound board several times,
and it didn't appear that anyone was taping off of it with anything.
Not much room for doing so anyway -- this is a tiny venue.

4) I don't have a set list -- but neither did they, apparently.
Well, actually, Robyn said that their set list got wet in Philadelphia
and they were having trouble reading it. Overall, a lot of this
show seemed fairly freeform. But it sounds like they opened with
the same "name" numbers as Philadelphia. Several songs I didn't
expect: Man with the Light Bulb Head, Trams of Old London, and
Uncorrected Personality Traits.

This show found Robyn and Grant in great spirits with lots of interesting
songs and they were obviously having a good time! It opened with Cynthia
Mask and Grant tried to add some keyboard but I guess it was turned off
cuz he couldn't get anything out of it so he went back to playing
guitar. They played another one from Eye, that being Queen Elvis and it
was done like most versions with the "pulsating" harmonica. A surprise was
the version of Uncorrected Personality Traits which was done with a
country style interpretation and the crowd loved it! Grant got Robyn to
try out Lightbulb Head, and first he started in the wrong key, so he
switched to the correct key and played it. But then he stopped after the
line "do you still smear yourself with jam" and said something to the
effect of "why did I write that???" and that was it for that
number. Another one I was glad to hear was Trams Of Old London, I don't
think I ever heard this one before live! For the encores Robyn played
alone on Chinese Bones and a cover of Dylan's It's Not Dark Yet, from the
Time Out Of Mind album! Then he dropped the guitar and did some krazee
dancing as he and Grant did a medley with Sound And Vision and a bunch of
disco snippits including Kung Fu Fighting! It was a bizarre dance like I
have never seen! The finale was a cover of Ashes To Ashes, again Robyn
just sang and danced while Grant played guitar and sang. Robyn added his
vocalization of the weird piano you hear on Ashes to Ashes studio version
too!

Those were the highlights IMO. Some of the other standard numbers played
were Gene Hackman, Dark Princess, I Feel Beautiful, and I think that sums
up all the Robyn numbers. Grant played about as many as Robyn, and he
played a few songs on his own for the encore. He also added keyboard to
some of Robyn's numbers. But I am not familiar with his music so I cannot
tell you the titles that were played.

They were selling A Star For Bram and a Grant CD and a t-shirt with the
"boxing poster" drawing on it.

Though it was supposed to start at 8:30 they didn't come on until around
9:00 and finished about 10:45.

Robyn was wearing a green and black (maybe dark purple) striped shirt and
blue trousers, and he wore some Lennon style glasses for part of the time.

See you there tomorrow night!!!!!

___

I was kinda surprised by the setlist. They tried, gamely (emphasis on
game), to adapt "Man w/the Lightbulb Head" to acoustic guitars, but they
gave up after about a verse or two. They also did "Uncorrected Personality
Traits" on guitars, and I didn't think it fared so well, either. It got the
best applause all night, but it was basically a matter of novelty and
recognition. I don't think he did anything off "A Star for Bram," but he
was selling it for $15. Grant Lee had a disc for the same price, and you
can get both for $25. They were also selling a T-shirt. It looked OK; I
really didn't check it out. It was a kinda "wild west", turn of the century
vaudeville poster style design touting Robyn and Grant. "Messers K & H
assure the public, their production will be second to none."

It was a grand time, and I'm sorry you missed it. Please have some pity on
me for missing tonight's show. I never did get the chance to talk to him
about any of the website/discography questions, what he thought of the
cheesehead that solicited me for $30 for his double CD bootleg, his views
on Napster, or even what he thought of the new package for Reese's Peices.
Maybe you can get all the answers tonight. They came on a bit after 8:30
and played til about 10:30-10:45.

Splendid. My friend from work, and the friend he brought alonge are new
converts. I've loaned him a few discs for up at his desk.

Have a ball tonight.

Cheers,

Tommy B

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